I solemnly swear to pursue the twin values of mischief and havoc to the ends of the earth. Cuteness in extremis!
So say we all.

No baby yet. Today would have been a good day for it to arrive since it was a bad day at work. Not the Worst Day Ever but the worst day so far this year at least. Our big digger has been down for a month and the bosses were getting antsy to get it working. It finally came up today. So we had to move it to where shovel 8 was. And then shovel 8 had to move to where shovel 6 was. And then shovel 6 had to move to where shovel 10 was. Which is easy to do when you are an engineer moving blips around on a map, but not so much fun when you are the guy who has to do all the grunt work with the cable and stuff. Plus a little short on the manpower today. There was even some Blood Boiling Over here and there, which is actually pretty rare at the ole coal mine, at least from my foreman. He was mad because we Stopped For Lunch. We were mad that he was denying us our Marxist right to Stop For Our Damn Lunch Already. So I was calling Michelle and asking if she was having the baby yet so I could go home. She kept saying no even when I was like, "Are you sure? Really? Because it seems like you might be contracting to me. What was that? Did your water just break?"
Anyways, we moved all the shovels and I came home and still have no baby. Maybe tomorrow.
On the plus side- from the time I got on the highway from Hinton all the way to here I didn't have to stop once. I might have fudged a yellow light a bit at Henday and Terwillegar just to keep the streak intact but I did it.
I finished The Baroque Cycle a few nights ago. I don't think I've ever used the term tour de force before in my life but it fits. At least I assume it fits since I don't really know what tour de force means. Kickass awesome is what I think it means.

Though any day the baby chooses to come would be fine by me, if I can have a choice I choose not today. Today is my worst day, because for me it is still yesterday. You are in the future of me! Woke up yesterday at 2 PM, worked all night, drove all morning, now I am shaky from adrenaline and caffeine. Luckily it seems there is little chance of baby so far.
January 20th would be a pretty good day- auspicious as they say in the East. I suggested we name her Barack if she is born that day. Hell, even if it's a boy. But Michelle forcefully informed me that the Great Naming Negotiations are closed. What have we chosen to name our child? You'll just have to stay tuned. Unless you're one of the billion who we already told.

Babies don't seem very cryey these days. In the last few weeks I have held and otherwise interacted with a number of very young babies and none of them have been cryers. This gives me great hope for the very near future when just such an individual will take up permanent residence at my house. Since the last time I really paid much attention to the world of babies it seems that great technological strides have been made towards minimizing the tears and the tantrums. Oprah discovered this lady who can see sounds, and she in turn discovered that all babies make the same 5 shapes when they cry- in other words, they can communicate their needs and if you just buy her DVD you can figure out what they are saying. And if you know someone who already bought the DVD than you can just borrow it!
Then there's things called swaddlers. Babies apparently really like to be smooshed and trapped inside pieces of cloth that render them immobile. To me it seems like this would only increase the howls but apparently it reminds them of the womb or something so they just magically fall asleep. If, for some reason, imprisoning them in this papoose doesn't work, you can give them a teddy bear that has a device inside it that mimics the sound of a mother's heartbeat, as heard from inside the womb. Works wonders, they say.
And if all that fails, holding them, rocking them and making faces at them also seems to work.

Tomorrow we have our ultrasound appointment. That's pretty exciting. Of course the big debate right now is whether to find out if the little critter is a boy or a girl. Michelle really wants to find out, but I am more inclined to wait. But in fairness I asked her to present her case. She was watching a courtroom drama when I got home from work so I was expecting some razzledazzle oratory and impeccable logical rhetoric. Her argument: "I really want to know!!!!!"
So then it was my turn.
"Okay so you know about quantum physics right?"
"No."
"You don't?"
Anyways, the gist of my argument is that, once we know, this quantum uncertainty of gender will be a known factor, and all of the fun we are having trying to choose a name will either end altogether (in the case of a boy since we have already decided what Boyquantumstate will be called) or, um, well, I forget how I worded it. Anyways we ended in a stalemate. But then Michelle started looking at boy names.
"How about Roman?" she said.
"How about Spartan?"
"Be serious!"
"I am serious- how about Leonidas?"
"Leonidas sounds like a disease."
"It's not a disease it's a mighty Spartan warrior."
"All I hear is 'itis'."
"It's not Leonitis it's Leonidas!"
"Well I like the name Roman."

I can finally tell you that I'm gonna be a Papa Bear! Woohoo! We will have a little cub sometime around January 21st. I couldn't be prouder. We've known for a few months but obviously it is best to let the first trimester pass before getting too crazy with the public announcements. This morning we went to the doctor and heard the baby's heartbeat, it was so amazing.
A few months ago I was on my way to work, night shift, when Michelle called to say that various signs and wonders caused her to believe that she might possibly be pregnant. Then she hung up so she could take a home pregnancy test while I paced the floor in Hinton. She called back and said it read positive. Then I had to go to work. We were doing some crazy coalminery thing and I couldn't take it anymore so I told my foreman I had to go call my wife and that I would return and finish the job later. Michelle had taken three tests to confirm so it seemed the writing was on the wall.
So, things have been pretty exciting around here although I think Michelle has not been having as much fun as she would like- little cub is already quite naughty and making Mama Bear throw up alla time. It took me a while to learn that cheering every time she vomited was not really appreciated- to me it was just more proof that it was all real.
Yup. Feels pretty great!
And that bear cub artwork was an early deviantArt commission I commished from cme, actually as I recall it was to benefit katrina victims so that was a few years ago now.